


finally found

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flying Doctors
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Het Relationship, Community: 1-million-words, F/M, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 10:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12555056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: Tom thinks he's finally found what he was looking for in the Kimberly. But a return visit to Cooper's Crossing makes him realise that something important is missing.





	finally found

**Author's Note:**

> For one million words October Bingo - prompts used : Wouldn't want it any other way/my best friend/ live like you were dying

Once upon a long ago, Tom Callaghan had once expressed the opinion that nothing changed in Cooper's Crossing except the date. 

On his return from the Kimberly to attend the big party to celebrate Henry Cooper's book being donated to the town, he was willing to concede that he might have been wrong on that. 

Not about the Wara Wara clinic run still being on the second Thursday of every month - the RFDS having found a roster that worked, said roster was so much set in stone that Moses might have carried it down from Mount Sinai along with the Ten Commandments. Nor about the esteem that the locals still held Tom in - the second that they'd realised who he was, they'd insisted that he treat them. 

The medical personnel who emerged from the plane though - they were new. And not an improvement, the man at least, the doctor, Tom quickly realised, who was not best pleased that Tom had taken over his patients, even if for one clinic run. Which was something different - back in Tom's day, they'd been only too happy when someone had stepped in to help them out. The nurse, on the other hand, seemed perfectly friendly, if a little too eager to enjoy the doctor's discomfort - well, that much at least hadn't changed. 

And then the pilot came over and Tom was on surer ground suddenly as a broad grin spread over Johnno's face and he made it clear that he had no problem giving Tom a lift back. 

The flight back proved to Tom that nothing had changed with Johnno, or at least that's what he thought. 

Right up until Johnno drove him back to the base. Which didn't look a bit different, not even a lick of paint to brighten the place up a bit. The people were still the same too and Tom got a hearty handshake from Geoff, a warm hug from Clare and a huff of still simmering disgust from the new doctor. Then one of the office doors opened and a woman came out, a curious look on her face at all the commotion, but one that changed to a smile when her eyes landed on Johnno. 

Who grinned down at her as she came over to stand beside him, sliding an arm around her waist that was distinctly proprietary. "And this is the last of the new folk, Tom," Johnno announced. "Doctor Rowie Lang. Or, as I like to call her, the missus." 

Tom blinked, surprised, because the Johnno he knew had been a long way away from settling down with anyone. Thankfully no-one appeared to notice because they were all looking at Rowie, who was the only one who looked more surprised than Tom. Her head snapped around and her eyes narrowed as she looked up at Johnno. "Excuse me?"

Johnno swallowed as he looked between Tom and Rowie, seemingly understanding that he'd put his foot in it. "Oh right." He reached up and tugged at his ear. "I usually don't call you that where you can hear me." 

Rowie didn't look as if that mollified her at all. "Is that so?" 

"Well, would you prefer 'the little woman'?" 

Geoff's eyebrows shot straight to his hairline and he turned on his heel towards his office without a word. Clare too melted away but Tom was rooted to the spot, enjoying the show. "Would you prefer to be sleeping with Stevie Ray tonight?" Rowie asked, and Tom tilted his head, wondering if he'd missed a baby announcement as well. 

Johnno's next words cleared that up. "Doghouse, party of one, got it." Shifting on his feet, he squeezed Rowie a little closer to him, looked down at her, then back over to Tom. "Rowie, this is Doctor Tom Callaghan, back in town for the party. Tom, this is Rowie. My wife." 

Tom stuck out his hand and Rowie shook it firmly. "Nice to meet you," he said, glancing at Johnno. "You kept that quiet." A quick look at Johnno's left hand confirmed that there was no ring on his finger and Johnno must have seen where he was looking because he shifted on his feet again as he flexed his fingers. 

"Yeah... I don't wear the ring when I'm flying. Don't like how it feels on the controls." 

Rowie made a noise at the back of her throat that Tom hadn't heard in years but recognised very quickly as that of a displeased female. Still though, there was a brightness to her eyes and a smile playing around the edges of her lips that was completely at odds with his recollections of what she should look like after making a sound like that. "And your excuse all the other times?" Her voice was teasing and Johnno looked heavenward as he shook his head. Rowie pressed what she must have seen as her advantage with, "Do you even know where it is?" 

"Of course I do." But he didn't sound sure at all and Rowie grinned as she tutted and shook her head mock seriously. 

"I don't know why I put up with him," she told Tom. 

That, at least, Johnno had an answer for. Closing his other arm around her waist, he laced his fingers together, pulling her close to him and almost lifting her off her feet in the process. "You wouldn't want me any other way," he informed her archly and from the way she smiled up at him as her hands landed on his chest, he had a point. 

"Newlyweds." Clare's voice sounded at Tom's elbow and he looked down at her, lifting one eyebrow. "And yes... They're always like this." A pause, a smile over at Johnno and Rowie that was distinctly fond. "You get used to it." 

"You calling us predictable, Clare?" Johnno sounded almost offended and Rowie smacked his chest lightly. 

"What am I always telling you about quitting while you're ahead?" she asked and Johnno nodded, schooling his face into a contrite expression. 

"Yes, dear," he said and it was Rowie's turn to roll her eyes. 

"You're lucky I love you," she told him and suddenly there wasn't a glint of humour on Johnno's face. 

"Yeah," he said. "I know." 

He leaned in then, brushed his lips over hers and Tom knew instinctively that there was a story there, just like he knew that this wasn't the right time to hear it. Besides, they didn't look like they were in the mood for talking so he followed Clare's lead and left them to it. 

A quick stop off at the Majestic and a warm welcome from Vic and Nancy later, he made his way over to Geoff and Kate's house where he was greeted with another warm hug and an armful of baby as Kate passed him Scarlett and he juggled her quite contentedly as Kate made them both tea. They sat at the kitchen table to drink it, Scarlett quite happy in her high chair, messing with her rattle and eyeing up the slices of cake on the table with a definite gleam in her eyes. "Like her father," Kate said with a wry smile when Tom commented on it. "Sweet tooth." 

"How are you finding it?" Tom leaned back in his chair and looked at her, contrasting the Kate he saw before him with the nurse he'd met so long ago when he'd first arrived in the Crossing. 

"What, full time motherhood and do I miss nursing, you mean?" Kate reached out to run a finger along Scarlett's cheek, causing the infant to burst into giggles. The sound, joy at its purest, made Tom smile and Kare grinned too as she looked back at him. "How can you not love that? Although..." She tilted her head. "When she's teething badly, I have my moments. But I wouldn't have it any other way." She sat back then, looked him up and down. "What about you? How's the Kimberly treating you?" 

Tom considered his response, his usual enthusiasm somewhat missing, though he couldn't quite put his finger on why. "I love it," he said. "I feel like I'm learning all the time... really helping people."

A tiny frown appeared on Kate's face. "You were doing that here," she pointed out. "I don't know why you had to go off to the only place that makes Cooper's Crossing look like the big city..."

She'd said as much to him when he'd told her he was leaving in the first place. This time, at least, she was teasing. Mostly. He thought. "It was something I had to do," he responded and when her lips set into a thin, definitely not teasing line, he added quickly, "Like you and Geoff did... I heard about your big move to the city..." 

Kate rolled her eyes. "It was an amazing opportunity for Geoff," she said and given what he'd heard about the job, he couldn't deny it. "Except he hated the hospital, how the patients were just a commodity... and I hated living there. A tiny house, no back yard, no fresh air, no sunlight..." She shuddered. 

"So you understand." Tom sipped his tea. 

Kate looked down, put her hand on her cup but didn't lift it. "There was one good thing," she said and he knew that tone. It was her leading tone, her 'I'm going somewhere with this and you may or may not like it' tone. "We got to see Chris a few times before we came back." 

And there it was. 

To be fair, Tom had been wondering how long it would take for someone to mention Chris's name around him and he wasn't the least bit surprised that it had happened sooner rather than later and he definitely wasn't surprised that it was Kate who had done it. His money had been on either her or Nancy, and with Vic hanging around glaring at Nancy like he was daring her to open her mouth, it wasn't going to be her. 

"Yeah," he said, bringing his cup to his lips. "She mentioned that." 

A casual drink of tea hid his smile when Kate's jaw dropped. To her credit, she recovered quickly but not quickly enough to hide her interest. "You've talked to her?" 

"We talk on the phone when we can," Tom admitted. "Write to each other every now and again." Kate's face lit up with a delighted grin and Tom resolved that not for diamonds would he admit that 'every now and again' was pretty much once a week, and certainly not that those letters were currently in a neat pile in his bag back at the Majestic. 

"So she knows you're here? And you know she's coming too?" Kate was leaning forward in her seat, her smile growing wider and Tom could practically hear the cogs whirring in her brain. 

"It'll be good to see her again." It was a fairly mild assertion, he thought, and it had the advantage of being the truth. It might have meant a little bit more to Kate though because she was grinning from ear to ear. "Don't go getting ahead of yourself," he warned her. "We're just mates." 

Kate gave him a look. The look, in fact, the one that used to have nurses and patients alike quivering in fear. "You and I are just mates, Tom," she told him flatly. "You and Chris have always been more... just with really awful timing." Put so plainly, Tom couldn't deny it and he looked down as he ran one finger along the handle of his cup. "She doesn't like Melbourne." The confirmation that he wasn't the only one that thought so had him looking up sharply. "She hasn't said it... but she's my best friend, and I know her. I don't think she's any happier there than I was. I just don't think she knows that she has other options." 

Her meaning was plain and Tom shifted in his seat. "Kate..." 

When the words died in his throat and his voice trailed off, Kate leaned forward, rested her hand on his arm. "Tom." Her voice was firm, her eyes fierce. "None of us are getting any younger, you know. How much time do you want to waste?" 

*

Those words came back to him the next day, standing in the town square, one minute listening to Chris's voice over a tinny radio connection, the next listening to the unmistakable sound of screaming and scraping metal. 

Tom had lived in Africa for three years, seen death every day, fought it hand to hand, tooth and nail. 

He'd thought he'd known what fear was. 

Standing there, not knowing if Chris was alive or dead, he realised he was wrong. 

He'd like to say it was everyone else around him kicking into emergency response that galvanised him to action, but no. It was her voice coming over the radio, barking orders in the background. Relief swept over him like a wave and suddenly nothing mattered in the world but getting to see her.

Of course, the scene of a massive road traffic accident was not the place for a reunion and anyway he only saw her in snatches as they treated the wounded. Relief didn't last for long either, not when word came round the hospital that Chris had "taken a bit of a turn" as Nancy put it with a frown. A concussion, Kate told him some fraught minutes later, herself pressed into service, throwing the words over her shoulder before rushing off to tend to someone else. Tom was rushing off himself, an operating theatre with his name on it and it was a good couple of hours before he got to push aside a curtain and lay eyes on her properly. 

Her face was almost as pale as the pillow she was lying on and the dark shadows under her eyes couldn't be entirely explained away by the accident. Never the tallest person he knew - her head had always fit on his chest, snugly under his chin - she looked smaller than ever, more fragile somehow, but when she opened her eyes and looked at him, her smile was the best thing he'd seen in months. 

"It's so good to see you," she told him, real happiness in her voice and Tom felt warmth spreading in his chest. They only talked for a couple of minutes before his doctorly sensibilities took over and he told her to get some rest. He stayed until she fell asleep, held her hand and stroked her hair and wondered how he was going to go back to the Kimberly without her. 

When he finally left her, he'd only taken a few steps when he found himself face to face with Johnno, coming from the other direction. "What are you doing here?" he asked, and Johnno grimaced as he ran a hand over his face. 

"Waiting on the missus," he said. "She could have finished an hour ago but she wants to check on everyone one last time. Doctors." The last was said with an exaggerated shrug as he craned his neck towards the cubicle Tom had just come from. "How's Chris?" 

Being as Johnno had never met Chris before today, Tom had a feeling that someone might just have filled him in on the sorry saga of Tom and Chris. "Sleeping," he said, keeping it simple just in case they hadn't. 

"Concussion, they said?" Off Tom's nod, Johnno looked impressed. "Doing all that after getting her bell rung? Tough women we have there." 

It was on the tip of Tom's tongue to deny the implication that Chris was his woman, but Kate's words of earlier rang in his ears and the denial died in his throat. Instead, he noticed a small detail that he'd missed earlier. "You found your wedding ring, I see." 

Johnno blinked, looked at his left hand almost like it belonged to someone else. When he looked back at Tom, he looked almost sheepish. "I knew where it was," he said and Tom must have looked surprised, or at the very least disbelieving because Johnno grinned as he rubbed his chin. "I really don't like wearing it when I fly... but we were supposed to be off today." He flexed his hand as if he was holding the throttle of the plane. "And I tell Rowie sometimes that I don't know where it is, just to see her face turn that funny colour. But I always know." 

He was so serious that he could only be telling the truth and Tom could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he'd seen Johnno like that. As he was processing that, Johnno said something else that stopped him in his tracks. "You know we almost didn't make it to the altar?" 

Tom shook his head. "No." 

Johnno shrugged. "Long story short, neither of us had the best childhood. And it affected us differently... I ended up being the charming extrovert you know and love..." That made both of them grin. "Rowie, she went inside herself. Quieter, doesn't trust as much, bottles stuff up. She's cautious, I'm like a bull at a gate. And on our wedding day - the first one, anyway, she decided she couldn't go through with it. We were too different, she reckoned, and besides, she couldn't rely on me to make her happy." 

That wasn't the whole story, Tom knew. "So what did you do?" 

"I let her go, mate." Johnno might have said it with a laugh but Tom could see the pain still there. "Nearly killed me but I knew I had to do it... she needed to figure things out for herself. And until she did that, she was never going to be happy. Lucky enough it all worked out in my favour. We got back together... eloped a few weeks later. Me, her and the Broken Hill court house. Nancy still hasn't forgiven us." 

He was smiling as he said the last bit, but his eyes were serious and Tom could see the parallels without them being pointed out to him. "So here I am," Johnno concluded, "doing laps of the hospital to stay awake while I wait for her to decide she's ready to come home. Unless I drag her out for her own good." 

"I'd like to see you try." Rowie's voice, clearly exhausted, startled them both but Johnno reacted quicker than Tom. Barely half a second after seeing Rowie's face - and she looked even more exhausted than her voice sounded - he was closing the gap between them, wrapping both arms around her shoulders and pulling her against him. She went willingly too, letting her forehead fall against his shoulder, her arms going around his waist. Even from a distance, Tom could see the shudder that ran through her body and he saw Johnno duck his head, put his lips near to her ear, although he couldn't hear what he said. Whatever it was though, it made Rowie huff out a giggle and Johnno smiled too as he kissed the top of her head, rested his cheek against it for a moment. Then he lifted his head, ran his hands down her back. "C'mon," he said, his voice a combination of firm and gentle. "Let's get you home." 

Rowie nodded, but even as she did so, she turned her head to look at Tom. "Are you all right getting back?" she asked him and Tom didn't miss the warning look that Johnno shot in his direction, one that said loud and clear he'd better not think about dragging them out of their way. 

"I'm fine, thanks," Tom assured her. "I was going to go back to the base, see if Geoff needs anything." Rowie blinked at the words, as if the thought hadn't occurred to her, then tilted her head, obviously considering joining him. "I'm sure he's fine," Tom said quickly. "You should head home... at least one doctor should be well rested tomorrow." 

No-one could argue with that logic and Rowie didn't even try. "OK." She smiled. "See you in the morning." 

Johnno and Tom exchanged their own goodbyes and then Tom stood in the hallway, watching them disappear, Johnno's arm slung around Rowie's shoulders, her arm around his waist. 

Then he looked around him, looked at the curtain that separated him from Chris and he knew, in a way he hadn't known for a very long time, exactly what he wanted. 

He didn't say that out loud though, not then,not when Chris was asleep and needed her rest. Instead, he waited until the next morning when he went back to the hospital, pushed back that same curtain and this time saw Chris standing with Kate, looking much better than she had the previous night. She smiled when she saw him and so did Kate, but Kate's smile was positively wicked as her eyes flicked between him and Chris. Before he could say anything, Kate clapped her hands together and announced brightly, "Well, I should get going." 

Chris frowned. "But I thought-"

"I know, but I really should get back to Scarlett. Besides, you're in good hands with Tom, isn't that right, Tom?" She didn't stick around to be contradicted, instead disappearing out of the cubicle as fast as her legs could carry her. 

Which left Tom and Chris staring at one another, identical knowing smiles on each of their faces. "Subtle, eh?" Tom asked, and Chris pressed her lips together, her cheeks more than a little pink. "I thought you might like to go for a drive," Tom continued. "Get some fresh air and sunshine?" 

The flush on Chris's cheeks deepened, but she was smiling when she nodded. "I'd like that." 

They made small talk on the drive out of town, a little bit more about his work in the Kimberly, a little bit more about the party and Henry Cooper's book and stories of people who had returned to town for the celebrations. Chris grew quieter the closer they got to their destination, probably because she realised where he was taking her, and when they got there and got out of the car, she looked around her for what seemed like a very long time before she looked around and met his gaze. 

"When you said fresh air and sunshine," she said, "I didn't think you meant Evans' dam." 

Tom shrugged as he came around to stand beside her. "It's a while since we've been out here," he said. "Except this time, I don't have any champagne tied to a fishing line." 

Chris chuckled softly. "I don't need champagne," she told him quietly. "It's enough just to be out here again." A visible shudder ran the length of her body and she wrapped her arms around herself. "I had dreams all night... back on the bus, the ute coming towards us..." She shuddered again and he didn't think twice about putting his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. She didn't resist in the slightest, her arms going around his waist and holding him tightly. "I thought I was going to die, Tom." Her whisper all but broke his heart and it didn't take much to recall his very real fear at thinking the very same thing. "And all I could think about was all the things that I never got to do." 

"Yeah." He moved one hand up and down her back and she pulled back just enough so that she could look up into his eyes. "I know what you mean." 

She bit her lip as her hands found his chest and he didn't miss how she trembled as his hands moved down to her hips. A tremble though, not a shudder, and he chose to take that as a good sign. "I may not have been entirely honest with you," he heard himself saying. 

Chris frowned. "Oh?" 

"In the hospital last night... I told you that I'd finally found what I was looking for all those years. And I have. Professionally speaking, that is. But being back here... seeing Johnno and Rowie... Geoff and Kate and their baby... it made me think realise that I was looking for something else too. Something more than just the job. But the thing is... any time I've ever thought about that... I've always imagined it with you. Didn't matter if I was here, or in Eritrea or the Kimberly... it's you. It's always been you, ever since I first met you." Tears were standing in Chris's eyes now and he didn't know what that meant, if it meant anything at all, but he pressed on. "I suppose I always thought we'd get another chance some day... that we had all the time in the world to sort things out. When I heard that bus crash... when I thought..." He swallowed, unable to continue, but luckily for him, Chris had found her voice. 

"It was like it happened in slow motion," she said softly. "Like it took hours for the ute to hit us. Like I knew I was going to die and I had all that time to think about all the things I could have done, should have done..." She dropped her head, rested it against his shoulder. "I don't want to go back to Melbourne... I hate it there. I hate the city, I hate the job... I want more than that from my life." 

Tom let the words hang in the air around them, let them sink into his heart. Then he smiled, moved one hand so that his index finger was underneath Chris's chin, used it as leverage to lift her head back up to look into his eyes. "Come back with me," he said. Her eyes flared wide, then narrowed and before she could say anything else, before she could say no, he pushed on. "We talk on the phone every week, we write letters... and it's not enough for me, not any more, not after this. I love you, Chris... I have always loved you. And I don't want to waste any more ti-"

Anything else he might have said was cut off when Chris stood up on her tiptoes and brought her lips to his. After an initial second of surprise, he kissed her back, opening his mouth to hers, a shock of sensation running up and down his spine as she did likewise. He'd thought about kissing her a lot over the years, a mixture of wishful thinking and memory, but neither came close to this as she wound her arms around his neck and he lifted her off her feet, still kissing her. 

When he finally drew back, he rested his forehead against hers, knowing that the smile he saw on her face was matched on his. "Is that a yes?" he asked and she threw back her head and laughed. 

He'd never heard a better sound. 

"Yes," she said, and then suddenly he had.


End file.
